Blenders to facilitate the processing of food, drinks, and other blended food preparations, have become ubiquitous in both commercial and residential settings. Such appliances are particularly useful where there are a variety of operations to be performed repeatedly with accuracy and precision.
Because changes in user taste or preference occur, the ability to create and store customized blending sequences provided by the blender has come about. For the purpose of the following discussion, the term “blending sequence” refers to the unique manner in which a user may increase and/or decrease the speed of the motor, as well as the adjustment of any other user adjustable features provided by the blender over time or with regard to any other suitable parameter. Typically, modification or addition of new blending sequences required that the blender be physically returned to the manufacturer where it was disassembled and reprogrammed. This process resulted in a tremendous inconvenience to users, thus making such blenders unattractive to potential buyers.
Furthermore, as blender technology has progressed, user selectable motor speed controls and timers have been incorporated into blenders to obtain greater consistency between each blended preparation. However, even with such controls, the primary obstacle in creating consistently blended preparations, such as blended drinks, is that the user is required to adjust the motor speed consistently each time a blending sequence is performed.
Recently, advances in semiconductor memories have made it feasible for blenders to include memories in which the varying motor speed and operating intervals of the blender required for making a blended preparation may be stored. Typically, these programmable blenders read information regarding a blending sequence that has been encoded by an external programming device onto a magnetic strip adhered to a plastic card. As such, these devices require an external device such as a computer to enter, modify or duplicate the drink programs maintained by the plastic card. However, the component costs necessitated by such a system often make a blender incorporating such features extremely expensive. Furthermore, keeping track of the various program cards used with such a system is generally tedious, as the cards are easily misplaced.
Furthermore, these programmable blenders are generally limited in the amount of complexity that the drink program may contain. For example, a typical drink program may contain only a limited number of slow or fast ramps, and speed changes. In addition typical drink programs may provide a reduced level of control over the deceleration of the blender's blades. Moreover, drink programs may also be limited to the number of burp cycles that can be repeated for a give blending sequence. It should be appreciated that a burp cycle is performed when the blender reduces the speed of its blades while mixing a substance. This reduced speed is maintained until the pocket of air is released through the substance, whereupon the speed of the blades is then increased to finish mixing the substance. As such, typical programmable blenders limit a user's ability to create customized blending programs or sequences. Furthermore, current programmable blenders do not allow the user to become part of the feedback system of the blending process. And as such, don't allow the user to obtain enhanced blending cycles as the modification to blending sequences created by current programmable blenders are done offline in a non-real-time manner.
Therefore, there is a need for a programmable blender having a record and playback feature that is capable of recording blending sequences that include the customized manner in which the user has selectively adjusted the various blending functions of the blender. There is also a need for a programmable blender having a record and playback feature that has an integrated blender memory unit allowing a user to store and play back a blending sequence. Additionally, there is a need for a programmable blender having a record and playback feature that includes a program selector switch, enabling a user to select a desired stored blend sequence. In addition, there is a need for a programmable blender having a record and playback feature that allows a user to be part of the feedback system of the blending process so as to create enhanced blending sequences. Furthermore, there is a need for a programmable blender having a record and playback feature that allows the user to record and store complex blending sequences that comprise a plurality of real-time motor speed variations.